


Keep Me

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, Deja Vu, F/M, Memory Alteration, overly soft and sentimental characterization of michael, we stan sad demons here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 19:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15892245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Michael knows she doesn’t remember. That’s not how this works, and after nearly eight hundred reboots he should know that. There are rules to this sort of thing.





	Keep Me

**Author's Note:**

> i should have gone to sleep three hours ago but instead i wrote this because of a comment somebody left on the last tgp fic i wrote ahahaha h e l p

Michael knows she doesn’t remember. That’s not how this works, and after nearly eight hundred reboots he should know that. There are rules to this sort of thing.

But there’s something about Eleanor, sometimes, a tilt of the head or a breath just a moment too long between words, that makes him wonder. Or maybe it’s wishful thinking. When she smiles, when she leans towards him, when she scrunches her nose in that all too familiar expression of incredulity. Something that makes him pause, his heart hammering in his throat like something clawing its way back up. Like if he opens his mouth to speak something horrible and hideous and better left in the dark will come tumbling out.

She always kisses him first. That is one of the rules. Eleanor had kissed him first, in reboot #89. It had been one of the ones where he’d taken her on as his assistant, tried to use his own evident frustration as part of her guilt about not belonging. They’d been at the skating rink (Michael had grown tired of bowling somewhere in the #50, #60 range) and Eleanor had been lecturing him on letting go and relaxing, and then she’d spun around, soared up to him, and…

It had taken Michael nearly three days to recover from his shock, and by that time the neighborhood was in shambles. Eleanor figured it out the evening he finally left his office again, and he was almost relieved to have the excuse to reboot.

He kept her at arm’s length for a while after that. No more assistant, no more searching for the flaw in his plan together. Enough time went by that he assumed it was a fluke. Maybe Eleanor’s romantic associations with skating hadn’t been entirely squashed out of her by that incident at her eleventh birthday party and he’d been on the receiving end of the result.

But in #154 it happened again. And then again in #199. In #201, #317, #425. At that point Michael had gotten tired of the soulmates he assigned to Eleanor disappointing him, and he’d turned the position of head honcho over to Vicky (a move he came to regret as she clamored for more power after he took the spot back) in favor of trying a round as her soulmate himself. It was motivated purely by curiosity and the desire to finally get the whole endeavor right. It had nothing to do with his _personal_ feelings. That’s another rule. He doesn’t make decisions based on what he may or may not want from Eleanor personally. As the humans say, “that way lies madness”.

#425 didn’t take, and he chalked up the idea of being Eleanor’s soulmate to a rash impulse and never tried it again. She continued to kiss him, though, sporadically and desperately and always so much more welcome and wanted than Michael would have preferred to admit. She kissed him in restaurants, in his office, on the awful little couch in her house, out doing activities together, on the beach, on the lake, on the path near the rock garden and a hundred other places. There’s scarcely a section of the neighborhood that doesn’t have a memory of Eleanor, of her soft human lips and her warm human hands and her breathless voice mouthing his name.

Eleanor doesn’t remember, because that’s not how this works, but sometimes they’ll be standing together in the center of town and a shadow will pass over her face as Michael recalls her pulling him down by the lapels of his jacket. She’ll stutter over a word while they sit together in her living room and for a moment something like hope will blossom in his chest before dying a quiet death at the hands of his own stubborn self-reminder.

There are rules, and rules work until they don’t.

It’s #801, and they’re over ten months in. Eleanor and Chidi are working together, keeping their secret from everyone else. Jason and Tahani have figured each other out and are involved in their own complicated game of deception. Michael couldn’t be happier.

And then, Eleanor knocks on the door of his office.

“Do you ever have deja-vu?” She asks. “Can angels even have deja-vu?”

His heart is pounding so fast he worries he might faint, and then reminds himself such a thing isn’t possible. He deflects. “I’m not an angel.”

“Right, because no humans have ever fully understood the afterlife while on earth.” Eleanor says, a wry grin on her face. “Except Doug over there.” She gestures to the photo on his wall.

“What do you want, Eleanor?” Michael asks with a weary sigh he’s unable to hold in.

“For you to answer the question. Ever have deja-vu?”

Michael takes his glasses off and starts cleaning them unnecessarily with the square of silk in his pocket, doing his utmost to give her the impression she’s boring him so that she’ll go away, but Eleanor has always been too smart for him, to observant for him. She slinks closer across the room, until she’s standing with her hands on the back of the chair and he’s leaning against the front of the desk. “No,” he says, finally, “I can’t say that I have.”

“But you know what it is, right? You know it’s a thing humans experience.”

“Where are you going with this, Eleanor?”

She comes around the chair, standing right in front of him. He puts his glasses back on and straightens up to his full height, glaring down at her.

“You know.” She whispers. Her eyes seem brighter than usual, and she’s trembling with something like excitement or anticipation or fear.

He does know. It’s there, writhing in the pit of his stomach and swirling in the air around her, something only he can see because of course he can, in nine dimensions and bold as the shining pink of her lips. He was never going to make it out the other side of this. 800 reboots later and she’d changed, or he had.

Michael settles a hand on her waist, pulling her closer, smiling at the little gasp that escapes from her when he brushes his fingertips against her cheek. She’s looking up at him like he’s the only thing in existence, and for a moment, he wants to be, just him and Eleanor and nothing else, forever. He wonders how many neighborhoods he could burn through before Shawn or someone higher stopped him, how far he could run with her before they’re caught.

“Michael,” she murmurs, and his name in her mouth spurs him forward. Something in her remembers, and something in him can’t let her be just a means to an end, can’t let her be part of this vast charade to prove himself. And because rules are made to be broken, he tilts her chin up and kisses her.

Eleanor opens up under him like she’s been waiting for him, like he’s come home to her, and what a thought that is, that she’s missed this as much as he has. That some part of her knows him, will always know him, even if only in a dim, half-imagined way. Deja-vu.

Eleanor moans as he wraps his arms around her, and something in Michael is exalting, fervent with the idea that this time, this time is the last time, not because he’s succeeded at last but because he’s failed in the most spectacular way possible and intends for it to stay that way. _Keep me,_ he wishes desperately as her hands slid into his hair. _Please, Eleanor, keep me and don’t forget_.

She’s pulling him off of her. “Michael.” She gasps out, staring up at him with shock and a tiny bit of discomfort. “What the fork was that, man?”

“I—I’m sorry?” He stammers, his hands still on her shoulder and her waist, his head still spinning with the enormity of all he’s just realized, with the knowledge that he doesn’t want what he used to want and isn’t who he thought he should be.

“Why did you—Michael.” Her tone suddenly changes from confused to teasing. “Michael, I know I’m a babe, but aren’t you like, magical energy in a human suit? What’s your angle here, buddy?”

Michael finally catches his breath enough to step away from her, to retreat to behind the desk and sit down and start rummaging through paperwork, any paperwork, so long as he doesn’t have to look her in the eye. “Please forgive me, Eleanor, it was an impulse, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, dude. That wasn’t an impulse. That was…” He risks glancing up in time to see her bite her lip, her eyes narrowed. Michael looks back down at his papers, wanting to close his eyes but worrying it might be a giveaway. If she figures it out now, right now, he might just destroy them all and forget the whole thing. It’s too much. He wants so badly for this to all end. He wants the quiet. But most of all, he wants Eleanor.

“This is the bad place, isn’t it.” She says, with none of the usual anger or excitement or betrayal or fear. With quiet wonder.

“Yes, Eleanor,” Michael sighs, “it is.”

He snaps his fingers.


End file.
